


mise (mon coeur) en place

by syllogismos



Category: Kitchen Confidential
Genre: Extremely Dubious Foodstuffs, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sharing a Bed, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:49:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8887978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syllogismos/pseuds/syllogismos
Summary: “Sorry, chorizo, it’s beyond me. You got more blankets than that?” Ramon pointed at the bed.
Jim shook his head slightly, but mostly ignored the question.
”Thanks for trying, I really appreciate it. Could I offer you something to drink for your trouble?”
"Beer?"
"Tea?"
"Tea," Ramon repeated, exhaling no small part of his masculinity in that single small word. "Yeah, okay."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carolinecrane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/gifts).



> Your letter was a delightful read, and with regards to this 'ship your "I mean, the possessiveness is canon" remark struck an unexpected (but fun) chord in my brain. I hope this fits the bill!
> 
> Happy Yuletide!  

After he’d started at the bottom of the totem pole, there was only one direction for Jim to move, and that was _up_. And he _was_ moving up in the kitchen hierarchy. Perhaps he wouldn’t be overtaking anyone, and there wasn’t anyone new to take his place at the very bottom, so yeah, Jim was still the _lowest_ on the pole, but the pole itself was on an upwards trajectory. Jim’s bottom rung didn’t attract the same kind of static as it once had. There was less of the “Be gone”s, violations of his personal space (not to mention dignity), and sexual jokes involving his family members, and more of the others actually calling him ‘Jim’.

No one complained anymore when Jim volunteered for staff meal. And when he’d served them deconstructed shepherd’s pie—beef hash with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables in gravy on the side—Jack had chuckled at his name for it and, after taking a bite, proclaimed it edible, “Not bad, kiddo. You might be learning.”

And sure, Jim knew that his advancement in standing was largely due to the fact that everyone was (a) impressed that Jim had hooked up with Tanya and (b) definitely under the impression that Tanya had relieved Jim of his lamentable virginity. Their conclusions were incorrect, but Jim had conducted the internal negotiations necessary to persuade himself that it was okay to let them continue to make the false assumption. It wasn’t even a lie of omission, he convinced himself, because he wouldn’t have owed it to them to announce his devirginization even if it had taken place. Nothing owed: nothing omitted.

There _had_ been a night when Jim thought it was going to happen: the night at Tanya’s, when victory at checkers unexpectedly resulted in Tanya tackling him out of a sudden desperate arousal, sliding between his legs and pushing her hips into his. But it just hadn’t been quite right. Overwhelming. Too much at once. His arms everywhere, Tanya’s arms everywhere. Legs tangled. His cock had gotten hard as nails so fast it almost hurt, but then the more he couldn’t tell what was touching him where and what he was touching, the more his excitement had twisted into panic, and finally he’d wriggled out from under Tanya. To her credit, she’d figured out Jim’s problem pretty quickly.

“Too fast?” she’d asked, kneeling at the other end of the couch while Jim was trying to collect himself at his end.

Jim had nodded, feeling ashamed, feeling blood withdraw from his cock and travel up to heat his cheeks instead.

“It’s okay. We can back up a little. Maybe tonight you’d just like to watch me?” And before Jim could even finish—“Watch you wh–“ came out before his mouth stopped working—asking what she meant, Tanya had stripped off her pants and panties then settled herself back on the coach and swung one leg over the back of the sofa, giving Jim a full and complete view of her pussy. She’d wiggled a little more to get comfortable, then reached down and slid two fingers in between her own wet folds.

Jim came in his pants.

And so that was the other thing that made it possible for Jim to let everyone continue thinking what they did. They wrong believing that Tanya had finally “educated” Jim, but they were only wrong about the content of the lesson.

For the most part, the days ticked by in perfect cookie-cutter shapes: lunch service, dinner service, wind-down at the bar, last subway home, collapse into bed. Rinse and repeat.

Mondays the restaurant was closed, but each Monday came and went almost like it didn’t exist. Chores were accomplished (laundry, groceries) as if by magic, because Jim couldn’t remember anything, later, but the days in the kitchen. Those were the days when he felt _alive_. Those were the day when things _happened._

Sometimes the happenings were small. And sometimes they only _looked_ small, like the latest of Steven’s many attempts at tempting Jack into putting one of his creations on the menu.

“It tastes divine, I promise.” Steven waved a plate under Cameron’s nose, and Cameron sniffed delicately but refrained from trying one of the new appetizers. Each was intricately formed: a miniature tree of spiny mushroom fronds radiating from their stem base and twined artfully around a precisely formed globe of cheese studded with pepper, oil-cured sun-dried tomato, and pickled spiny mushroom.

“I wonder,” Cameron continued, “if I made the same argument, could I get you to suck my cock?”

“Cameron!” Jack chided without turning from his station, “We keep it clean in my kitchen.”

Cameron folded his arms across his chest and arched an eyebrow.

“Well, cleaner than _that_ ,” Jack backpedaled. “Look what you’ve done to Jim!”

It was true: Jim had gone all hot in the face, and his throat was working rapidly. He’d raised one hand in front of his mouth desperately; he wasn’t honestly sure that he was going to keep from throwing up, and projectile vomiting in the kitchen would certainly be a most unsanitary practice. As he struggled, he doubled over, free hand clutching the edge of his station. It was like whatever he had swallowed—Steven’s beautifully horrid creation—was crawling its way up from his stomach to twine its spiny branches around his heart.

“I don’t think Jim’s upset about my language.” Cameron crossed his arms over his chest and pointed to the plate of appetizers, “I think he must have missed lunch again.” Two of Steven’s “spiny mushroom bonsai” were missing.

“Is something terrible going to happen to him because he had two?” Jack asked.

“He didn’t have two.” Everyone turned to the voice from behind: Ramon, licking the first two fingers of one hand. “Not bad, but I wouldn’t say _divine_. A bit like durian.”

“And where have you tasted durian?” Teddy asked.

“Chinatown,” Ramon replied flatly. “Get chorizo a glass of water or something.”

Jim accepted the glass of sparkling water from Seth with shaking hands. Seth had coaxed him away from the bustle of the kitchen, and Jim was sitting on the floor of the locker room, cool steel at his back. Everything felt hot, stifling. But the water helped, glittering a path down his throat, even if it evaporated on contact with the molten heat in the pit of stomach.

“You got any food allergies, kid?” Seth asked.

“No, nothing. I’m fine. Just give me a minute, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Sure, you’ve convinced me.” Seth stood up from his squat and patted Jim on the shoulder. “Just holler if you need anything, or, y’know, if you’re actually going to die.”

Jim nodded and watched Seth return to the kitchen. He tipped his head back against the lockers and tried to focus on the ceiling as a steady constant above him even though all it seemed to want to do was spin slowly. He could stop the spinning by closing his eyes, he discovered, so he kept them closed.

* * *

Through the kitchen in the back, Ramon held tight with one hand to keep steady, what with the floor rolling underneath him. He bent his knees and wiped the sweat from his forehead, counting the minutes and the seconds until his break.

When his break finally came, the air outside—New York in late January—was blessedly cold, but the ground was still bucking and rolling like a ship on a stormy sea. Ramon found a milk crate for a seat and leaned his head back against the rough brick behind him. If he closed his eyes, the motion underneath him wasn’t so noticeable, so he closed them and kept them closed.

The next day it got worse: at home and sprawled on his sagging faded green sofa, Ramon suffered. His head was pounding, a pulsing headache beating at his temples, and sweat was oozing from his skin, soaking his wife beater and sticking his goddamned cojones.

Maybe it was Steven’s bonsai experiment, but maybe it wasn’t. Ramon had been waiting for something to go sideways. After he’d failed to save Santa Maria when she’d come to him in lobster form, he’d been resigned to it. He didn’t expect a severe punishment—it had only been a _lobster_ , after all, a roach of the sea, as Teddy had put it—but he did expect some blowback, and he wondered whether maybe this was it. Santa Maria was exacting her revenge through the unlikely mechanism of haute cuisine, ambitiously crafted.

That didn’t explain why Jim was being punished too, but Jim was _Jim_. Accidentally subjecting himself to someone else’s divine punishment was exactly the kind of mess he was always stumbling into, and Ramon was (guiltily) the gladder for it. Jim’s haplessness was one of his more consistent sources of entertainment in the kitchen. Ramon loved it all. The simplest joy was watching slim, gangly-limbed Jim fumble something, then bend over to pick it up. He had a perfectly tight little ass, an ass Ramon even thought about sometimes, if he needed to get off quickly. The kid was a virgin, or had been until Tanya, but that meant his ass was _still_ virgin territory, and Ramon didn’t find it hard at all to imagine bending Jim over the plating station and stuffing him with cock. He’d have to turn his head to the side, cheek to the steel table, breath puffing out to mist on the shiny surface as he whimpered and panted while Ramon fucked his way inside.

Jim’s mouth was another temptation, perhaps even more sinful, but Ramon wasn’t exactly inexperienced when it came to penance. If he ever got to put Jim on his knees and feed Jim’s pouty mouth his cock, he’d happily spend the next ten years saying _Ave Maria_ s if that’s what it’d take to atone for the utter destruction of such purity.

Despite his fever, Ramon got off even faster than usual thinking about Jim bent over and Jim sucking cock and Jim shuddering and helpless with two of Ramon’s fingers in his ass, milking his prostrate for _hours_. But after he’d come, Ramon felt hollow and empty instead of satisfied. And as the hours drifted by, the feeling only intensified into a clawing, gnawing, incredibly insistent compulsion to return to the kitchen. He’d feel better there, the compulsion screamed at him. What was he doing in his dump of an apartment that smelled faintly of cat piss and provided no entertainment that Ramon didn’t make himself?

The kitchen, on the other hand. He could picture it: the noise, the bustle, the heat. Jim dropping onions or potatoes or tangerines or otherwise making an idiot of himself. Jim trying to roll the shit further downhill, swatting him on the ass with his timid little hand. Spraying Jim in the face in retaliation (and feeling an unwelcome stab of guilt, now, because _shit_ , that had been fucking _mean_ , man).

* * *

“Hey sport, what’s with my station?”

“Morning, Jack,” Jim replied.

“It’s afternoon, Jim, and only half the things I need at my station are prepped. Why?”

“Didn’t sleep well last night, chef, won’t happen again.” Didn’t sleep _at all_ was more like it, but Jack didn’t need to know that.

Jim heaved the bag of tangerines onto the counter and resisted the temptation to wipe his forehead on his sleeve. He could feel the sweat popping from his pores and tracing tracks down the sides of his face. His t-shirt underneath his jacket was already soaked through, and the jacket itself felt damp and heavy. In fact, everything felt heavy. The shoes on his feet, the tangerines, even the knife in his hand.

The knife in his hand was being removed, gently.

“You’re sweating like a pig.”

“Sorry–” 

“You sick with something?”

“I don’t think so, just tired.”

“Well, you look like death, and I’m more than a little afraid you’re going to drip sweat on my food, so go on home, kid.”

“No, I don’t want–” It would have been hard for Jim to articulate, but the prospect of home was _bleak_. Normally he was proud of his four walls at the Y, not because the space amounted to much (it really didn’t) but because it was _his_ , paid for with his own earned dollars, and it wasn’t in Utah. But today home was the last place he wanted to be, and he said as much. Whined it, in fact, without dignity, before he realized what he was doing.

Jack threw up his hands in frustration. “Fine, kid, stay here, see if I care. But you’re not coming anywhere near the food. Ramon’s called out sick, fill in for him at the sinks.”

Jim might have been gaping like a Patagonian toothfish (commonly known as a sea bass); he certainly wasn’t moving. It was like his brain was momentarily stuck, forcing him to pause while it processed the new information: Ramon wasn’t in the kitchen. The emptiness that Jim felt, within and without, had a _cause_. Heading home wouldn’t be so bad, perhaps, if Jim could find Ramon on the way…

Jack snapped his fingers two inches in front of Jim’s nose, and Jim shrieked.

“Christ, that’s piercing.”

“Sor–”

“Sinks, yesterday. Out of my sight, yesterday.”

“Yes, chef.”

* * *

In the end, Ramon caved to the compulsion and returned to Nolita. And in the instant that his eyes landed on Jim at his sink, his headache vanished in an instant.

“Ramon!” Jim took half a step forward, then seemed to realize where he was and reconsider, reversing his course into three steps backwards, away from the sink he’d usurped. “I’m, uh, I’m glad you’re feeling better. You look good. I mean, better, um, healthier, I didn’t mean–”

“I know what you mean,” Ramon gruffed, but he couldn’t maintain the brusque façade. “You too,” he added, in a softer tone.

“Since you’re back, I should probably go back to the kitchen.” Jim’s voice climbed in pitch and velocity as he scurried past Ramon; he almost _squeaked_ on ‘kitchen’ just as his hip brushed Ramon’s, and Ramon felt all the hair on that side of his body stand on end. He shuddered and saw Jim do the same, but then Jack yelled something about cucumbers, and Jim jumped to respond, and the moment was gone.

But at the close of the day, Jim hung back from the usual crowd heading to the bar, and Ramon knew this without looking or hearing. He just _knew_. “Don’t you usually go with them?” he called out from the dishwasher, without turning, as he was unloading the last rack of flatware.

“Too tired,” Jim lied, and Ramon _knew_ it was a lie in the same fashion: deep somewhere, under his skin, in his flesh.

“How you gettin’ home?”

“Subway.”

Ramon grunted: approval, agreement (because he already knew Jim was a subway commuter but exposing that knowledge would have been admitting how close the tabs were that he’d kept on Jim since, well, since that French bastard kidnapped him). “Wait for me,” Ramon elaborated. “I’ll walk you.”

“Uh, okay,” Jim said, “That’s not necessary, but nice I guess. Thank you, I mean.” He hoisted himself up onto one of the scrubbed-clean steel worktops and watched Ramon and his crew finish up. Ramon felt his eyes through the minutes, could even swear his heart started keeping time with the rhythm of Jim’s legs, swinging idly back and forth.

* * *

Saturday’s close played out much like Friday’s. Jim excused himself from the bar crowd, and Ramon walked him to the subway. The reluctance was mutual when it came time to go to their respective platforms. Jim ached just thinking about Ramon walking away and another night of restless sleep—no sleep, it felt like—to follow. He knew—just _knew_ , in the same obvious way that he knew he had two legs and two arms—that if, somehow, Ramon were with him for the night, he’d sleep like a baby. But Ramon walked away, shoulders slumped, and Jim dragged his feet home and barely slept.

The fact that Sunday played out _differently_ was both a surprise and not a surprise, a relief and a source of something that Jim wanted to label terror but felt dangerously close to excitement, bubbling and stretching and reaching under his skin.

On Sunday, Ramon started a conversation while Jim was helping him put away the last of the newly clean flatware.

“Your place, you like it?”

“Where I live? At the Y?”

“Yeah. You know, is it an okay deal? Is the landlord good?”

“It’s tiny, and my radiator craps out all the time, so it’s cold.”

“That’s not good, chorizo,” Ramon fretted, “it’s gonna get real cold tonight.”

“I know. Blankets and many cups of tea in my future.”

“You know,” Ramon started. He’d paused after reaching past Jim to replace a ladle where it belonged, and their sides were almost touching. It felt like the small gap between them _wanted_ to close, like magnetic attraction. “My brother does HVAC, boilers, all that stuff, taught me the basics a while ago, when he wanted me to join him in the business. I could look at your radiator if you want.”

“Oh would you? That would be incredible, amazing.”

“It’s no problem, chorizo. The landlords in this city, man, you gotta watch out.”

So Ramon went home with Jim. Took the 1 train with him, got off at his stop, followed him to his door and followed him inside.

The second thought that occurred with Ramon in his little YMCA room rental was that Ramon’s broad shoulders made it look even smaller. The first had been “Oh God, how embarrassing” since he’d left boxers drying on a line strung across the room, which he’d tugged down with a squeak and the clatter of flying thumbtacks as soon as he stepped in. (One of the pairs, hanging dead center, were _Ratatouille_ -patterned, with little cheeses and rats in chef’s hats.) Ramon had wisely suppressed his chuckle, but not quickly enough for Jim to be able to pretend it hadn’t happened.

“Where’s the radiator?”

Jim pointed and cussed to himself as he realized the radiator was covered in drying socks, but Ramon said nothing as he cleared them and fussed over the mechanics of the thing for several long minutes, brandishing a multitool from the depths of one of his pockets and loosening here, tightening there, every once in a while trying the knob, but to no avail. The pipes remained cold and silent.

“Sorry, chorizo, it’s beyond me. You got more blankets than that?” Ramon pointed at the bed.

Jim shook his head slightly, but mostly ignored the question.

”Thanks for trying, I really appreciate it. Could I offer you something to drink for your trouble?”

“Beer?”

“Tea?”

“Tea,” Ramon repeated, exhaling no small part of his masculinity in that single three-letter word. “Yeah, okay.”

Jim heated the water for the tea in a microwave. He only had two mugs, so he rinsed the dirty one and used it himself. Ramon sat on the bed—a single, pushed up against one wall—because there was nowhere else to sit. When the tea ready was ready, Jim chucked the used tea bags in the trash and brought both mugs to the bed, handing Ramon his before he climbed up himself. He sat close, shoulder and thigh touching Ramon’s, though there wasn’t precisely a need for such close proximity since they were sat sideways and had the whole length of the bed. But it was chilly, Jim told himself, and _wow_ did Ramon put out heat like a man-shaped furnace. Certainly better than his radiator.

Together with Ramon’s presence, the tea was warming. The silence was strange, but so was the whole situation, so it didn’t change anything. Jim was hyperaware of every breath he took, every breath Ramon took, the way Ramon rubbed his foot along Jim’s ankle when he had an itch. When Jim drained his mug and bent forward to set it on the floor he felt Ramon doing the same and a small marble of dread formed in his stomach in anticipation of the warmth about to depart. Unless–

Ramon stood up, and Jim quick as a snake slithered into the bed facing the wall but stretched out. He rolled onto his back just enough to look over and catch Ramon’s eye. “Stay.” He cocked his head to indicate the meager space behind him. “Please.”

“Forgive me, Santa Maria,” Ramon muttered, almost too low and quiet for Jim to hear. But he stepped out of his jeans and shrugged out of his sweatshirt, then climbed onto the bed behind Jim, and it was a tight squeeze, Ramon’s front pressed up against Jim’s back, and it should have been claustrophobic but instead it just felt _warm_ and _safe_ , and before he could stop himself Jim let out a happy groan. The last thing he felt before he fell asleep was Ramon’s arm draping over his waist, and it felt like a pencil stroke coming around to close a perfect circle.

* * *

There was no discussion: Ramon simply went home with Jim every night and slept with him, spooned up behind him despite the technical challenge of The Second Arm, the one not draped over Jim’s narrow waist. After the first night when Jim had slept in his clothes he started stripping down to his boxers, going crazy red the first time he pulled his shirt off in front of Ramon, revealing his wiry torso. He was thin but toned, no doubt from all the work in the kitchen. His nipples were small and brown-pink and perfectly circular; when they pebbled in the chill air Ramon was struck by a compulsion to touch them, to rub his palms up and down Jim’s scant pectorals, just to see how he’d react.

He seized the opportunity to see the compulsion through (along with many other of his premeditated crimes against Jim’s innocence) when an opportunity—in the shape of Jim’s cock—presented itself by poking him in the back Monday morning.  
The restaurant was closed, and there was no reason to escape before Jim woke up like Ramon had on the Monday previous, the morning after they’d first slept together, before they’d established a comfortable pattern of simply ignoring each other in the morning, not speaking and hardly looking at each other before they’d both showered and dressed and Jim had made tea for them both.

This time Ramon had rolled onto his back in the night, and somehow Jim had rolled too and was using Ramon’s bicep as a pillow. His face was wedged between Ramon’s chin and his shoulder, his breath warm and steady against the skin of Ramon’s neck. Jim’s top arm was slung over Ramon’s chest, and their legs were tangled together. And then there was Jim’s morning wood pressing unmistakably into Ramon’s thigh.

Ramon gave into his simmering temptation and brushed the pad of his thumb over one of Jim’s nipples. Jim huffed out a breath through his nose and squirmed, still asleep. Ramon did it again, and Jim’s mouth fell open. Again, a bit rougher, and Jim whimpered, and his eyelashes fluttered. Before he was fully conscious he pressed his face closer into Ramon’s neck, breathing in deeply. Then he woke. And froze.

“You like this,” Ramon said, hardly questioning, and brushed his thumb featherlight over the same nipple.

Jim shivered in pleasure, then stiffened with realization. “Um, I–” Ramon could see the red flooding his cheeks in real time, _fascinating_. “Oh my God. I– Shit. I mean, fudge. Holy–”

Ramon did it again, adding a flick of his thumbnail over the clearly sensitive bud.

“Fu–” Jim’s exclamation turned into a moan, lower and louder than Ramon expected from him, and his hips pressed forward, pushing his erection more solidly against Ramon’s thigh, which must have made Jim aware of it in the first place.

"Oh my– I’m so sorry. I apologize–”

Ramon took advantage of Jim’s panicked scramble to extricate himself and then, before Jim could figure out his endgame, he had the bedding kicked off, Jim pinned to the bed on his back, and he was pulling Jim’s boxers down just far enough to let his cock and balls free. He nosed under the base of Jim’s cock so he could breathe in the scent there, straight from Jim’s balls: sleep-sweat and musk and arousal and something spicy and new that Ramon’s mind instantly labelled _mate_.

Ramon licked up from the base to the tip and then put his mouth around the head of Jim’s cock and sucked lightly. Jim’s whimper turned to a moan, and he scrabbled for handholds in the sheets. Ramon sucked again and then suddenly found himself with more than half Jim’s length in his mouth as Jim’s hips seized upwards. Up and down, up and down, and Ramon won a bet with himself as Jim came on the tenth pass, collapsing to the bed even as he was still twitching through aftershocks in Ramon’s mouth.

Ramon swallowed quickly and moved up the bed. He was hard now, and his cock throbbed as it dragged over Jim’s belly. Jim’s chest was heaving and his eyes tightly closed, the only thing still tense in his body. He was breathing through his mouth, which conveniently left it open for Ramon to kiss his way inside–

“Mmpf–” Jim tried to pull away, but Ramon couldn’t– He leaned his weight onto Jim, his hips pulsing, his tongue sweeping the backs of Jim’s teeth, thrusting deeper, thrusting, thrusting–

Jim pushed and pushed at his shoulders and finally succeeded: Ramon lost Jim’s mouth but gained the reward of Jim staring up at him with wide eyes and a kiss-swollen mouth.

“Are you–” Jim started to ask, but he aborted the question when Ramon pushed his head to the side and bite down on his neck, just behind and under his left ear. He soothed the bite with a lick, then started sucking. Jim squirmed under him, unintentionally increasing the friction on Ramon’s cock, but Ramon was single-mindedly focused on making his mark, and it wasn’t until Jim whined a single sustained note of pain? pleasure? protest? and brought his hands to Ramon’s neck that Ramon spilled in his shorts with a groan, releasing Jim’s neck from his mouth. He collapsed half off Jim to the side to recover himself, but he couldn’t stop touching. He rubbed Jim’s chest with one palm, catching a nipple every so often, and once he’d caught his breath, leaned up to blow across the purpling mark he’d left on Jim’s neck. Jim shivered, sighed, and rolled into Ramon. He leaned over to kiss the corner of Ramon’s mouth. A second kiss landed mostly on Ramon’s bottom lip, then a third involved Jim’s tentatively seeking tongue, and Ramon was not yet recovered enough to do anything but let Jim explore.

Jim’s exploration was gentle and sweet until, without warning, he latched onto a spot just below the hinge of Ramon’s jaw and _chewed_ his own mark into Ramon’s skin. Just when Ramon was about to push him off, he let go, licked over the spot, tucked his head under Ramon’s chin, and promptly fell asleep. Ramon was left feeling sticky and being slept on. He considered anger and annoyance but rejected both possibilities in favor of just going back to sleep.

* * *

Before the whole blow job incident, Jim had already confessed to Tanya the story so far. Wednesday was a pretty slow day, and sometimes after Jim had finished prep he’d make two cappuccinos and bring one out to Tanya, and they’d sit crosswise on the floor of the coat check with their legs stretched out, feet almost touching the opposite wall, sometimes facing each other, sometimes rubbing shoulders sitting on the same side.

“You’ve got something you want to tell me,” Tanya announced. “I can tell.”

“Yeah,” Jim sighed. “Maybe.”

“Is it a secret?”

“I guess? I mean, no one else knows.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Tanya reassured, “I promise.” She bumped her shoulder against Jim’s to emphasize the point.

“I know you won’t, but– You’re going to think it’s weird, but I can’t tell anyone else, and I have to tell _someone_.” 

“How about this. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, then say it all at once, just in the one breath. Can you do that?”

“Okay, I can try.” Jim took a deep breath, closed his eyes… “RamonandIaresleepingtogether.”

Tanya froze for a second, then grinned widely. “I knew it! Cameron’s going to be so excited, _and_ he’ll owe me.” She stopped for a second, considering. “ _And_ I didn’t know Ramon was gay, he–"

“He’s not, and I’m not! We’re sleeping together, not sleeping together!”

The cute like crinkle of confusion appeared between Tanya’s brows. “I don’t understand.”

“He comes home with me, and we sleep. In the same bed.” After a beat, Jim added, blushing, “And we cuddle, a bit, I guess.”

“You and Ramon _cuddle_ and _sleep_ in the same bed?”

“Yep.”

“And you don’t want to have sex with him?”

“No, I really don’t. I don’t even know how that works–”

“Oh, it’s simple. There’s all the normal stuff like hand jobs and blow jobs, and then there’s anal, which men can do to women too, you know, and it’s pretty great. Really different and fun because you can have a cock in you and a toy or something, or I can, I mean, because I’m a woman, and I have two holes, but I guess you just have the one. Anal sex is better for men though! There’s this thing up inside, like a little button. Not like a clothes button, but like a push button, sort of buried but close enough to touch and rub, and it’s pretty amazing, for a lot of men at least. It’s called the prostate.”

“Tanya. I don’t want to have sex with Ramon.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Then why are you sleeping with him?”

“I don’t know!”

“Hmm, maybe it’s just a phase. Like grunge, or shoulder pads in women’s suits.”

“It’s not a phase, it’s _nothing_. Just forget it.” Jim hung his head low and pulled his knees into his chest.

“Okay, if you say so.” Tanya hoisted herself up using one of Jim’s shoulders and brushed her dress off. “Just one thing.”

“What,” Jim said to his knees.

“Maybe you don’t actually know what you want. Sex stuff can be confusing sometimes, like when you’re hungry and you think you want to throw up, but really you need to do the opposite and just eat something? Just think about it. Or maybe just stop thinking and see what happens. That’s the nicest way sometimes, I think.”

* * *

Jim had a lie prepared to keep Ramon away: the landlord had fixed his heat, finally, no need for a sleepover. But when the time came for it, he still hung back and watched the bar crowd leave; they’d stopped even asking if he was coming. And he couldn’t resist the temptation to stay back. He felt at peace just being near Ramon as they finished the clean up together, as they walked to the train, as they sat thigh-to-thigh on the train and watched twenty-six subway stations slide by, as they walked to the YMCA. They feeling was physical: if Jim closed his eyes and concentrated, he could sense something like tendrils or filaments in his chest. In Ramon’s presence, they were relaxed, waving slowly, like a kelp forest swaying in an ocean current. The current’s draw pointed to Ramon, always, like a compass to north.

When they reached Jim’s door, Ramon pressed up behind him as Jim fumbled with the lock, and the tendrils tensed and stretched, though not unpleasantly. When Jim had the door open, Ramon pushed him through it and up against the wall to the side, pushing aside Jim’s coat tree.

Jim opened his mouth on instinct and put his arms around Ramon’s neck just to hang on. His cock throbbed to life so quickly it almost hurt, and he could feel Ramon’s hot against his hip for a second, but then it was gone, and Ramon was racing through the buttons of Jim’s peacoat. His hands were at Jim’s waistband next, until Jim’s pants and boxers were down around his knees.

“Turn around, chorizo.” Ramon punctuated his demand by bending his head to the bruise he’d bitten into Jim’s neck and sucking over it. His hands were on Jim’s hips, vice tight and twisting. Jim turned because it was the path of least resistance, and his brain hadn’t caught up with the proceedings. It was hard to think with every part of him, it seemed, stretching out for contact with Ramon, desperate for it.

Jim only realized the sounds of more clothing being discarded weren’t the sounds of his _own_ clothing being discarded when Ramon pressed up hot against his back, the fronts of his bare thighs to the backs of Jim’s and his cock a hot brand between his legs. Ramon put a hand on the wall on either side of Jim’s head and caged him in, leaning his forehead against the base of Jim’s neck. He rubbed his cock between Jim’s cheeks, slow at first, then faster and faster. His breathing picked up and he mouthed at Jim’s shoulder, then his neck, pausing every so often to stick his nose in Jim’s hair and breathe.

Then, suddenly, one of Ramon’s hands was on Jim’s prick, and Jim was thrusting into the tight fist Ramon provided, matching the rhythm of Ramon’s cock nudging at the back of his balls. Jim was already leaking, and Ramon gathered up the slick from the end of his cock and rubbed it over the length, pulling ever tighter and faster from root to tip.

When Jim came, he felt punched in the gut, every muscle in his body clenching tight as he painted the wall. Ramon kept stroking, and a second wave hit, whiting out Jim’s vision and stealing his breath. His knees threatened to collapse under him, but Ramon pressed him harder against the wall and held his hips still as he lost the rhythm of his own thrusts and came, wet and sloppy, between Jim’s legs.

Jim’s brain came back online when he recognized the image before his eyes, from his position with his head turned to the side and pressed up against the wall. The coat tree Ramon had pushed aside had fallen onto his little dressing table and knocked over the mug resting there to spill its cold tea and break its handle on the floor.

“Fuck,” Jim said, gathering up his strength to move and take care of the mess.

“Mmm,” Ramon mumbled into Jim’s shoulder, “good one.”

Jim squirmed, but Ramon caged him in again, applying his mouth to the sensitive place at the hinge of Jim’s jaw, under his ear. Jim relaxed for the moment that the first suck made his knees liquid, but the sharp graze of Ramon’s teeth brought him back, and the surprise of his elbow in Ramon’s side was enough of a surprise to lead to his successful escape.

Ramon reached for him when he stepped towards the mess of the dressing table, but Jim knocked his hand away.

“What are you doing?”

Ramon didn’t answer.

Jim tucked himself back into his shorts and pulled his pants up. He frowned at the mess, but that didn’t change it, and everything felt off-kilter. He felt strange inside, empty and hollow.

“I’ve only got one mug now.” Jim turned back to face Ramon. Then, abruptly: “I think you should leave. I’m– I don’t know what this is, but I know I’m not gay, and so I think it’s best if you just go, please.”

“I’m not gay either,” Ramon did up his own pants and stepped into Jim’s space, looming. His hand slipped under the hem of Jim’s shirt, sweeping over his lower belly, then around to his lower back. “Men, women, what does it matter? And you like this, chorizo.” Ramon bent to take one of Jim’s earlobes between his teeth, gently tugging and suckling. A moan fell out of Jim before he could stop it. His cock twitched, and he tilted his head back and then, just as suddenly, recovered his initiative. Catching and keeping the advantage of surprise, Jim pushed and shoved Ramon out the door.

“Just give me a day, please,” Jim begged, and it hurt to push Ramon away and step back. The tendrils inside were reaching for him, and they swirled and whirled nauseatingly as Ramon nodded and walked down the hall.

* * *

The cold discomfort of Ramon’s own lumpy bed was worse than ever. Something inside him—or _somethings_ , it felt like—were desperate and in crisis without Jim nearby. They itched, they crawled, they didn’t let him sleep for more than a few minutes at a time.

When the phone rang at four in the morning, it didn’t wake Ramon up.

* * *

Clearly making Ramon leave was a poor decision. Before making it to Nolita, Jim retched into his toilet twice and could only manage a half a piece of dry toast.

Everything felt wrong in the kitchen too. The smells were too intense, the sounds too loud, and Jim kept tripping over his own feet (more than usual) and accidentally bumping into Teddy or Seth or Steven, and that was worse because the contact made him shudder with its wrongness, even through clothes.

It was hard to escape the conclusion that distance from Ramon was the cause of Jim’s misery. It was harder to accept the blow the universe and chance had landed against him: Ramon’s brother in a car crash, Ramon away from Nolita indefinitely. Jim would have to find a way to survive the aching emptiness and to withstand the shudder of horror that stabbed him in the gut every time one of the tendrils of the bond between them—now that the distance had made it clear that was what it was—every time one of them extended and reached, only to find _nothing_ to connect to.

* * *

A parsnip brought everything to a head, literally. Ramon was finally back at Nolita after his brother was released from the hospital, and it was better, but Jim was still struggling, fighting urges to rub his face all over Ramon’s chest, to breathe the scent from his skin, and to taste it. Distracted, Jim fumbled his knife in an attempt to cut the stem off the parsnip and sliced the pads of his middle and ring fingers. He yelped, and the next second Ramon was tugging at his elbow. The second after that, he was shivering in the walk-in, and by the third second he was sighing with relief and wincing with pain as Ramon sucked hard on his injured fingers.

He cock took notice too, and that was no longer a surprise. Nor was the moan that emerged. Jim was, however, impressed with how far he managed to get Ramon’s trousers down: halfway down his thighs, to be precise. Ramon had already gotten farther in his own efforts. Jim’s pants were around his ankles, and when Ramon dropped to his knees, Jim gave up on anything other than staying upright.

Ramon’s mouth was hotter and tighter than Jim remembered. Jim’s fingers ached as he found Ramon’s ears to clutch at, but Ramon only took Jim down deeper, and Jim’s hips twitched before he could stop them. He wanted to _bury_ himself in Ramon’s mouth. He pushed, and Ramon swallowed around him, and he pushed again, and Ramon moaned. He withdrew, and Ramon grabbed his ass and pulled him forward again. They repeated these steps until Jim got the idea and started thrusting slowly, his eyes glued to the sight of his cock moving in and out and in and out of Ramon’s mouth. What did it taste like? How did Ramon manage to take it that far? What–

Ramon swirled the tip of his tongue around the head of Jim’s cock, poking at the sensitive underside just behind the crown, and Jim thrust forward more sharply, gaining momentum, feeling his balls lift and tighten and brush against Ramon’s chin until he came like a fire hydrant, gushing down Ramon’s throat, knocking a peach and two zucchini off the shelf he found for a handhold. Ramon continued to suck gently and swallow as Jim softened, and his hands wandered to Jim’s ass, kneading and massaging and slipping his fingers into Jim’s crack to ghost over his hole, which twitched with interest and made Jim go hot all over under his skin because Ramon knew how to do _that_ , he’d learned that through the bond.

Just the other day he’d been imagining—couldn’t help it—but he didn’t have any context, and he’d kept trying to arrange it, mentally, him on his back and Ramon over him between his stretched out legs, but the angle wasn’t right, and Ramon’s cock was big, and the combination of the two he couldn’t imagine as anything other than awkward and painful.

Then Ramon had taken over, across the bond, and Jim had the impression of himself, low on all fours and wetness and heat in a rhythm passing over his hole again and again, and it’d taken him an embarrassingly long time to realize that it was Ramon’s _tongue_. Fingers followed the tongue, one to start, then two, pressing deep and withdrawing slowly, picking up speed until Jim couldn’t help but twitch his hips, pushing back into the deepest point of each thrust, then pulling to keep the fingers inside as long as possible. The fingers made it obvious what Jim wanted next: Ramon’s cock.

It was the same in the walk-in despite his bloody fingers and Ramon still on his knees. Looking down to the tent in Ramon’s pants, suddenly he wanted to _taste_ it.

Ramon wouldn’t let him do more than suck on the head; he’d inch away every time Jim tried to take more, but then he took Jim’s uninjured hand and Jim smelled _butter_ in addition to the musk of cock, and his fingers were slippery alongside Ramon’s, and then they were somewhere hot and velvet soft to the touch, and when he pressed gently on the bump he felt under them, Ramon clutched tight to Jim’s shoulder and swore. (In English first, then in Spanish as Jim circled the bump with the pad of his index finger.)

Jim pulled his fingers out, experimenting, and Ramon whimpered. His next inhale was shaky, maybe desperate, and Jim shoved his fingers back in roughly to see what would happen and found his mouth flooded with a hot, bitter slick. He swallowed what he could and stuck his tongue instinctively to the source, the slit in the head of Ramon’s cock, and it fluttered and pulsed, and Jim felt hot all over and big, powerful.

When Ramon pushed his face away, Jim rocked back on his heels and examined his handiwork: Ramon’s chest heaving, his biceps bulging as he clutched at the shelves for support, his face and chest flushed red.

“Did I do it right?”

But Jim didn’t have to ask. He could feel the bond between them: his tendrils stretched out and weaved together with Ramon’s, delicate fronds wrapped and twirled around each other until following the tangle was a mental impossibility. There was no telling where Jim’s ended and Ramon’s began, only the truth of the connection between them, now unbreakable.


End file.
